Chris Belcher

Arts, Culture & Society II: Writing the Hardest Part: Moving Toward the Traumatic in Creative Nonfiction

Saturday, June 22, 2024, 12:00 to 1:15 p.m.

“Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something.”

– Judith Butler, Precarious Life

Much has been written about the self-care that writers must practice if engaged in the art of transforming our most traumatic moments into story. This seminar will (mostly) leave that up to our therapists, and focus instead on the justifications for doing so, and how to care for those on the receiving end of our stories. Rooted in Maggie Nelson’s theory of art as “a place where all elements — even extremities — of what it feels like to be human can be heard and find place,” this seminar will ask participants to practice articulating their individual reasons for putting the hardest parts of our lives onto the page. By looking at the techniques of nonfiction writers, from Alex Marzano-Lesnevich to James Baldwin to Esmé Weijun Wang, as well as Toni Morrison’s fiction and Sylvia Plath’s poetry, we will build a craft archive of trauma. Then, we will discuss our own anxieties about writing the hardest part and engage in craft exercises meant to help us do so with care for the self and the other.

Required Reading (in Reader):

Febos, Melissa. “The Return: The Art of Confession.” Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative, Catapult, 2022.

Available online at: https://thesewaneereview.com/articles/return-art-confession